Waitress Left Baffled After Receiving Enormous Tip For The Pay It Forward Movement

Waitress Left Baffled After Receiving Enormous Tip For The Pay It Forward Movement

In USA, a 20% tip is customary when dining out, but a waitress was left baffled after receiving an enormous gift of gratuity — a 7,000 percent increase on her tip! Mike, from NYC left the waiter a $3,000 tip for a $43.50 bill last week.

“This woman had been serving us for almost a year now. She’s a lovely individual, & she talked about how she was served an eviction notice last month,” said Mike, who wished to remain anonymous. “I had also constantly thought about for quite some time my teacher’s project and this foundation (ReesSpecht Life), and I thought it was an appropriate time.”

ReesSpecht Life is a Pay it Forward movement started by his eighth-grade science teacher, Rich Specht, after he lost his young baby boy to a tragic drowning. In response to Rees’ death, Specht and his wife started the foundation to thank everyone who helped them cope after their son’s funeral.

The couple initially printed 5,000 cards to encourage others to pay-it-forward. Since then, they’ve distributed more than 100,000 worldwide. “It keeps growing. People keep doing these things. We made our website and we get people to share their stories of what they’ve done,” Specht said. “I get excited even when someone buys a coffee for someone else and shares it with us.”

Mike explained that he did the act of kindness in honor of his former teacher, Mr. Specht, who was his eighth-grade science teacher and an incredible human being. “To see something so horrible happen to him…; it doesn’t surprise me that he’d start a foundation out of something so horrible that would just continue to keep wonderful things going,”

“It was heart-wrenching for me to see it happen.” Mike told ABC News. “This was just a big opportunity for me to be able to honor someone that’s so wonderful.”

Mike explained that he decided on paying forward $3,000 to his server because she really needed it and it felt like the right thing. Mr. Specht and his wife were also happy and never imagined something that big would happen when they started the foundation. “I don’t know if there’s a word that fits because I can’t describe the feeling. It restores something that was missing,” Specht said.